BMW Championship: FedEx Cup Playoff Bubbles Will Burst By the End of Play Sunday

By Carl Conrad

With just 18 holes remaining in the BMW Championship, several players have all but resigned themselves to the fact that they won’t be advancing to the TOUR Championship next week. Even though Conway Farms has surrendered some impressive scores this week, some guys are just too far down this week’s leaderboard to crack the top 30 in the FedEx Cupstandings.

There are some, however, who might be able to manage to move inside of the top 30 with quality outings on Sunday. After three rounds, Dustin Johnson is projected as the last man in next week’s field. I can guarantee he doesn’t want to leave his fate up to anyone else. Therefore, he’ll need to up the leaderboard a bit to guarantee his ticket into next week.

RickieFowler and Bubba Watson are currently ranked 34th and 35th, respectively, ahead of Sunday’s tee times. Fowler is 13 shots off of the pace at even par, while Watson is two under par and 11 back. It doesn’t look like Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter or Luke Donald will be playing for the $10 million prize next week unless they go low on Sunday. It’s certainly possible, but based on how they’ve played so far this week – with the exception of Donald, who is currently six under par – it isn’t likely.

Prior to the start of this event everyone knew that 40 people who played this week would not make it on to the finale. As things have shaken out this week, some of the names on the outside of the top 30 have certainly been surprising – as have some of the names of players who are projected to qualify. We’ll just have to wait until late in the day Sunday to find out who has actually played their way in and who did not.